After mustering out of the Civil War, William moved from Salem, Columbiana County, Ohio to Erie, Ohio and then to Tama County, Iowa, and finally to Hall County, Nebraska. The family "…left Ohio in a covered wagon and went to Tama Iowa where the infant George William died (1871). In the following year, they left by oxen wagon for Hall Co. to take a soldier's homestead on government lands located in Cameron on the Prairie Creek. Bill and Mary arrived on June 4, 1872, in a covered wagon with their four children. Ten-year-old Laura and her mother drove a small herd of cattle, herding them along on foot while Etta 7, Ralph 5, and John 4 rode in the wagon driven by Bill. They arrived on their homestead, (in section 32 of Cameron Township) on Prairie Creek. A clear running spring fed the stream, which wandered across their quarter section of land. Both banks were thickly covered with plum and chokecherry bushes and with wild grapevines entwined among the few trees that were standing. The Dubbs family lived for a few weeks in the covered wagon until a log dwelling could be built on the south bank of the Creek. On August 11, 1872 Elizabeth Anne Dubbs was born...on the banks of Prairie Creek, the first white child born there.
William was a prominent figure in the early settlement and development of Prairie Creek...In the fall of 1872, the new settlers in Cameron Township met at the house of William Dubbs and organized school district number 13 of Hall County, which was nine miles square. It was called Dubbs School, and was located a half mile north of the Dubbs homestead on the corner of where the county road mile lines would one day intersect, on railroad lands...There were four generations of the Dubbs children who attended District 13, called the "Dubbs School"...
At the time of his death, William owned a splendid farm of 540 acres and a beautiful home, surrounded by a fine orchard and over seventy acres of timber. During the years 1901-2 he served as commissioner of Hall County.